REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
TO AMERICORP'S NATIONAL CIVILIAN COMMUNITY CORPS
GRADUATION CEREMONY

Department of Interior
Washington. D.C.

12:16 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. When I came up here, Josh said, "I
warmed them up for you." (Laughter.) He certainly did that. Now he's
sitting in my seat, which might be -- (laughter and applause.) Might be
a good omen. (Laughter.)

Let me thank all of you for being here today. I want to say a
special word of thanks to Harris Wofford, who, as you heard from his own
speech, his public service to America goes all the way back to World War
II. He was a major player in the civil rights revolution, the
establishment of the Peace Corps. He served in the United States
Senate. He agreed to come back and run our national service program,
and to do it in a way that reached out to all Americans from all walks
of life and all political backgrounds. And he has done a superb job.
I'm very grateful to Senator Harris Wofford for his leadership of
AmeriCorps. He's been great in our whole national service program.
(Applause.)

I want to thank General Chambers and Kate Becker for their
leadership, and welcome all of you here, but especially the AmeriCorps
NCCC graduates. Senator Wofford mentioned that on the morning you were
sworn in with great symbolism in front of the FDR Memorial, it was quite
cold. But without, literally, 24 hours, many of you were already off to
Texas and Puerto Rico to help the victims of a hurricane and a flood.
After a year of such duty -- I think you call them "spikes," just like
these fellows did so many years ago -- you have fulfilled your
AmeriCorps pledge. You have made a difference; you have gotten things
done for America.

So to all the parents and family members and friends here
today, let me say that your sons and daughters may look about the same
as they did a year ago, but they have grown in remarkable ways. They
are now firefighters, home builders, relief workers, community
organizers, mentors, educators. They are confident, they are leaders.
They are also servants as they lead.

Congratulations to Class Five of D.C. Like the CCC alumni
here today, you have touched lives and changed communities in ways that
will be remembered and appreciated for years and years to come.

You know, in so many ways, AmeriCorps is the embodiment of the
deal I struck with the American people in 1992. At the time,
unemployment was high, the debt had quadrupled in the previous 12 years.
Social division was increasing. Political stagnation was the order of
the day in Washington. And I wanted our country to change course and
come together. I acknowledged that government can't solve all the
problems, but we can't leave the people that you've been helping out
there to sink or swim on their own, either. And so I wanted to create a
government that would give people the tools to solve their own problems
and live their own dreams; and to basically have a new compact in which
we said, we will attempt to create opportunity for all Americans who
are, themselves, responsible, and we will attempt to build an American
community of all responsible citizens.

AmeriCorps embodies that. You go out there creating
opportunity every day. You are fulfilling your citizen
responsibilities. And you have certainly helped us to build one
American community.

So far, as Harris said, there have been 100,000 of you. You
have built tens of thousands of homes, immunized hundreds of thousands
of children, taught millions of students to read, planted millions of
trees, and are now in New Jersey enrolling in the new Children's Health
Insurance Program, an initiative I hope to take nationwide because we
have still over 8 million children without any health insurance in
America today, and we now have the funds in Washington to cover most of
them. We just have to get them enrolled.

Now we're trying to take AmeriCorps up to 100,000 a year.
Think what we could do -- just think about everything you've done in
this last year. Think how we could change the face a future of America
if there were 100,000 of you out there every single year from now on
doing what you have done. Think how many more young people would also
be able to use the AmeriCorps scholarship to go on to college. Think
how that would change the face and future of America, the range of
opportunities available, the lives that people would live.

I think this is a very important moment for America. We have
the strongest economy in a generation, the lowest minority unemployment
rate ever recorded, the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years, the lowest
welfare rolls in 32 years, the lowest crime rate in 26 years, highest
budget surplus we've ever had, highest home ownership in history. What
are we going to do with it?

I think we should use it to meet our big long-term challenges.
The baby boomers, people like me, when we retire, if we don't do
something now, Social Security and Medicare won't be able to sustain the
burden of our numbers. But we now have the ability to fix Social
Security and Medicare in a way that enables us to retire without
imposing burdens on you -- so that you will be able to raise your
children without having to spend your hard-earned money to support your
parents. I think that is very important. (Applause.)

Because of the surplus, we can get this country out of debt,
for the first time since Andrew Jackson was President in 1835. And if
we don't that, if we do that, it means that when you go out into the
world, interest rates will be lower, businesses will be stronger, jobs
will be more plentiful, incomes will be higher, homes will be more
affordable. And so will college education -- that's important.

It means we can invest in the education of all of our children
and meet our other fundamental responsibilities, and still afford a
modest -- not a big, but a modest -- tax cut designed to help people
deal with the biggest challenges they face.

It means that we can go out into the areas that you know all
too well, which, in spite of this fabulous economy, have not yet felt
this recovery. I was in Appalachia, in the Mississippi Delta, on the
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, in South Phoenix and East St. Louis, and
Watts and East L.A.. And you know as well as I do that for all the
economic progress of the last few years, there are still some people who
are living only in the shadows of this prosperity.

All of this we can do now. And I think it is my
responsibility -- and not just my responsibility as President, but my
responsibility as a member of my generation, and that of every other
member of my generation to leave you an America in the 21st century that
is strong and that is worthy of the service you have just rendered.
That is really what we're discussing up here.

You heard Josh talking -- we don't have to put up with things
we don't agree with in America, with conditions and human suffering and
problems that we know we can change. It doesn't have to be this way.
You have proved that lives can be changed. You have proved that
circumstances can be improved. You can prove that dreams can be
realized -- not only yours, but the people you've tried to help. And
this is sort of a magic moment for our country, and if we do the right
things now, then the feelings you have from your service as AmeriCorps
volunteers are things that you will be able to put into practice, to
good effect for your country and for young people that come along behind
you for the rest of your lives.

I can tell you now, having lived a good deal longer than you
have, there are two things that I want to tell you about the difference
in my age and yours. One is, it doesn't take long to close the gap.
(Laughter and applause.) Right? Is that right? I mean, when I said
that, every person here in this room that's at least 50 years old was
thinking the same thing -- it seems like yesterday when I was 20.
(Laughter.) Isn't that right? We're all sitting here thinking the same
thing.

By the way, I'd let you be President for a year and a half if
you'd let me be 20. (Laughter and applause.) I'd take my chances on
doing it again. One. Number two, there are certain chances that come
along every day, and others that just come along once in a lifetime.

For example, my parents' generation won World War II and
endured and whipped the Great Depression. The youngest of them are
about Senator Wofford's age. He looks a lot younger than he is -- and
acts even younger than that. And they did that, and they were called
upon to do that when they were young -to save freedom and to beat a
Depression.

Then in the intervening generation, they dealt with the civil
rights revolution in America and gave us an America that looks more like
this AmeriCorps class. And thank God for them, all of them.

Our generation was blessed to be raised with enormous material
satisfaction, and when I was young it was the last time the economy was
about as good as it is now. And we have waited a long time for the time
when we would be presented with our one great opportunity and
responsibility of a lifetime. We have it now in the present economic
conditions of America.

I've tried to fulfill our generation's responsibility by
giving you the chance to serve and by helping to build one America
across all the racial and religions and cultural and other lines that
divide us. But we are being tested now, and our values are being
defined.

One of the things that is most amazing to me is that there are
still some Republicans -- and I want to say the word, "some" -- we've
had good bipartisan support for AmeriCorps. But there are still some
who are determined to zero out funding for AmeriCorps. In other words,
ideological argument in the face of all the evidence of all the good
you've done. Well, if they zero out the funding, their bill has zero
chance of becoming law, because I will veto it. (Applause.)

But the AmeriCorps budget is just one example of what will
happen, or would happen, if their big tax cut could become law. I mean,
politicians normally, when they have money, like -- you give it back to
people in an election season, say, this is your money, I'm going to give
it back to you, please vote for me. And that's normally a better
political position than the one I'm in, which is, it's your money, but I
don't think we can give it back to you -- at least we can't give as much
back as they want to give back to you. You can readily see which is the
more appealing position, can't you?

Remember when you were kids, you used to argue about your
parents, you know. You can just hear them arguing up there -- "my tax
cut is bigger than your tax cut." (Laughter.) But that's not really
the question.

The question is, what does it take to save America's future in
the face of the aging crisis? It means you have to lengthen the life of
Social Security past the life span of the baby boomers. That's what it
means. And my plan takes Social Security out to 2053. A lot of you
will be around then, but I probably won't. But we owe it to you, to
lengthen Social Security beyond the life span of the baby boomers.

It means we should strengthen Medicare and provide for a
prescription drug benefit because of medical revolutions which enable
people to live longer and better if they can access medicine.

It means we should get out of debt, so we can give you the
strongest possible economy. It means we should invest in education and
the environment and health care and national defense, and saving our
farmers that are in so much trouble today, and the care of our veterans.
And then we should give what is left in a tax cut.

The reason that you have people up there trying to zero
AmeriCorps is they know they can't pay for their tax cut without big
cuts. There are special interest tax breaks in this tax bill that I
threatened to veto, just special interest provisions, that would fund
AmeriCorps ten times over. And I would urge the American people to look
at the fine print of this bill because it also has big cuts in
education, in research and development, in the environment. It could
even force closure of some of the national parks you worked on.

And again I say, this doesn't have to be a partisan issue.
This should be a generational issue. And just like when you go out on a
project, you have to do first things first. If you're working on a
mountain, you've got to put the right kind of shoes or boots on before
you go up there. This debate over this tax cut in Washington has not
actually been a very good object lesson for the older generation to you.
This debate is like a family getting around the table and saying, hey,
let's take the vacation of our lifetime, the vacation of our dreams, and
when we get home we'll see if we can't pay the mortgage and send the
kids to college. That's what's going on.

It is the reverse of what you have done -- getting things done
for your country, making a difference, thinking about the future.

So I say to all of you, I hope you will always believe you can
make a difference. And I hope all of the leaders here in Washington
will realize that we have the chance of a lifetime to make a difference.

When you leave this program, I hope you will remember the
other thing I said to you, which is that the distance between your age
and mine is shorter than you think. It looks like a very long way from
where you are, but from where I am it looks like it happened in the
flash of an eye. What you have done for your country -- and also what
you have done for yourselves -- proves that it is truly more blessed to
give than to receive, and that in giving you do receive.

All over the world today there is turmoil -- from the Balkans,
Kosovo and Bosnia, to Northern Ireland to the Middle East to the tribal
conflicts of Africa, where people are fighting and dying because their
vision is so limited that they believe their life only counts if they
can lift themselves up by putting someone else down -- someone of a
different race, someone of a different religion, someone with a
different slant on life. Someone in Africa of a different tribe. All
over the world this is happening.

AmeriCorps is living, daily, practical, flesh-and-blood proof
that there's a better way to live; and that what we have in common is
more important than what divides us; and that if we work together and
hold hands and believe we're going into the future together, we can
change anything we want to change.

You are the modern manifestation of the dream of America's
founders. And I hope when you leave here you will never, ever, ever
stop being proud of what you've done. And I hope you will never stop
preaching the lessons you have learned. For in the end, if we're all
working toward one America, the chances are we'll get where we're going.